Cataract Creek Snowmobile Trails offical thread 2016/17

[Kokanee9]

slamaha and I are heading out tomorrow if you wanted to join up

Going to south end. Etherington at 930. I'm going out tomorrow as well and would love to go over to fording.

Just reposting with quotes.

Thanks for the invite.

I did manage to make it out there that day and parked at cataract creek area. I didn't see your posts until that morning and by then it was a bit too late to meet at the parking lot. Somewhere you had put down the time you planned on being there and it was 45 min after I was reading the posts.

 

[Kokanee9]

Sunday was good too. Trails are a bit pounded out, but soft stuff was still found on edges of trails. Conservation Officers out in full force on Sunday.

I got checked as well on sunday.

 

[Kokanee9]

I should have taken a picture to post on here, but the creek crossing at cataract lot had melt water come down saturday and sunday. Guessing about 6-8" on top of the frozen layer previously there. This new water has started to freeze, but I could see it flexing when I was standing on it with my weight. The main path that everyone uses to leave the parking lot was broken through and it was a straight line of slush water to the trails. People had no problems if they stayed about 5' on the upstream side of where others had broken through.

Whoever has the machine on the creek since at least last thursday will need to bring a metal bar or something to chip it out since the water/ice level has risen. It is now frozen into the ice and with the warm weather this week, will only be more deeper.

 

[cammont]

Sledderglen is going out today or tomorrow and will be trying to deal with that sled frozen in the creek. If the owner of that sled is on this thread, they may want to contact him to find out where he moved it to if he is successful in removing it from the ice.

 

[tucker_98]

4 days seems a long time to leave a sled on the ice unattended... Saw it there this weekend as well and was wondering what the deal was.

Did anyone grab a VIN# to see if it was stolen and left there possibly?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[cammont]

Glen will have all that info once he's attempted to get the sled off the ice. In talking with Glen yesterday, he believes he may know who the owner's of the sled are. We'll figure this out right quick as we don't want too much negative publicity about it, especially with all that is going on with our neighbour's to the south involving the Castle area. We'll either get the sled to the rightful owners or turn it over to the appropriate authorities for further investigation.

 

[JZ1]

Left in creek for 4 days, did I read that right? That's unacceptable in my opinion.

 

[cammont]

I agree... very irresponsible of the owners to leave it this long, but without knowing who exactly they are and how to contact them, we were not able to find out the whole story as to why it was left there this long.

For now, Glen is going to volunteer his time, and his personal safety, to go out on the unstable ice and cut the sled out of there. We as the regular group of volunteers who maintain the trails for all to enjoy were not able to coordinate this past weekend with the rally in Lethbridge back on Saturday, promoting the club at our booth at the Boat and Sportsman Show, and with the CSC club ride yesterday (where a lot of members were trying to come up with a plan right there to remove the sled but did not have enough tools and safety gear), today was the first opportunity that anyone has had to try to deal with this.

Again, once the sled is removed, we will be making efforts to turn the sled over to the rightful owners or turning the sled over to the authorities of jurisdiction to further investigate.

 

[TylerG]

I agree... very irresponsible of the owners to leave it this long, but without knowing who exactly they are and how to contact them, we were not able to find out the whole story as to why it was left there this long.

For now, Glen is going to volunteer his time, and his personal safety, to go out on the unstable ice and cut the sled out of there. We as the regular group of volunteers who maintain the trails for all to enjoy were not able to coordinate this past weekend with the rally in Lethbridge back on Saturday, promoting the club at our booth at the Boat and Sportsman Show, and with the CSC club ride yesterday (where a lot of members were trying to come up with a plan right there to remove the sled but did not have enough tools and safety gear), today was the first opportunity that anyone has had to try to deal with this.

Again, once the sled is removed, we will be making efforts to turn the sled over to the rightful owners or turning the sled over to the authorities of jurisdiction to further investigate.

Hopefully Glen doesn't go for a cold swim!

 

[Sledderglen]

SLED IS GONE Sled has been picked up and removed by the owner I hope. We got there today at noon with tools straps and prybars and hip waiders and rubber boots. I was looking forward to the challenge and someone beat me to it.
Thanks for all you fellow users who were worried about it being on the river.
So we groomed best we could out to the big bridge on the bottom of Cummins and Cataract Creek trail.

Will keep you upto date on whats going on out there.

 

[Sledderglen]

I got checked as well on sunday.

Where were you when you were checked? What did they ask from you? Its hard to get them out to unlock the gates but glad to see them checking out riders and making sure thing are OK. I hope??????

 

[Kokanee9]

Where were you when you were checked? What did they ask from you? Its hard to get them out to unlock the gates but glad to see them checking out riders and making sure thing are OK. I hope??????

I got checked in the cataract parking lot as I was unloading.

When I paid registration last summer, I had put it in the center console and forgot to put on the stickers for 2017. He checked registration and everything was fine as I put the stickers on while he was going over the registration.
I only talked to 1 CO there but there was an enclosed trailer on his truck. I presume there was 1 or 2 sleds in it.

 

[Sledderglen]

I know after that last weekend people are wondering if they ever groom these F%$#*&G trails. I know they are rough and today we did some smoothing of them out.

This pic is of one time just before the rally that we groomed the trails. This was a nice day fresh snow and sunshine

 

[John8]

You guys do a wonderful job. I want to join the CSC along with my buddy. Maybe we can help you guys out.

 

[Sledderglen]

You guys do a wonderful job. I want to join the CSC along with my buddy. Maybe we can help you guys out.

Thanks. We have a good size group of volunteers and corporate sponsors and companies willing to put their time and equipment out there to improve this area. All these work hard on this system. Its only going to get better we all hope. Companies like All Track and K&C Gravel and The Accessories Shop and others that give just to improve the area and would like to see it brought back to the way the government had it years ago. Thanks to all of those.

You and your buddy and all the other riders that enjoy this area are more than welcome to join the club. We need more people willing to join and help out. I know we have more helpers that want to help this year than others. We have fall work days to clean up the trails and have a fun time doing it.

 

[cammont]

This chat thread has been quiet for almost 2 days!!! Anyone have any news to report regarding Cataract Creek area?

 

[GrumpyGuy]

This chat thread has been quiet for almost 2 days!!! Anyone have any news to report regarding Cataract Creek area?

I've been watching as well. The registration on my sleds came due and I can't decide if I should bother. :\

 

[cammont]

I've been watching as well. The registration on my sleds came due and I can't decide if I should bother. :\

As in you're not sure if you're going to get out again this year?


Safety/Search & Rescue
Calgary Snow Mobile Club Home

 

[Sledderglen]

Good evening riders. We tried to groom the trails today. Slow going because they are pretty rough. Not kidney busting rough but still rough. Thanks to All Track we have a big groomer. Now we need to mother nature to get her s%£t together aND cool off. Groomer or no groomer you can't groom a slurpee. Snow is soft and wet and not groom able in its present condition. Weather is to cool off during or after the weekend and we will wait for things to cool off before we continue.
Sorry to miss another weekend but if we continue it would just be one solid block of ice. The snow will not be good.
Thanks. If it cools off good we will be out. I'm going Friday to add some signs in places. Will update site then.

 

[JZ1]

With the recent temps in the teens I assume staging at Cataract is out of the question?